New in park hopping... suggestions?

[ENFE19]

Hello,
My family of 4 (22, 30, 57, 57 years old) is going to park hop for the first time on July 6, 2017. We have visited WDW numerous times some our plan focus in selected attractions only. Also, we are going to stay in POP. Those that have previous experience park hopping, please offer us tips for my vacation (fastpass, the order of attractions...).
- Magic Kingdom

• BOG - 8AM-9AM (have breakfast reservations)
• Seven Dwarfs ride
• Tomorrowland Speedway (my sister loves it!)
• Sorcerers (just for the cards - we collect them)
• Transportation Express
  • Other possible attractions: Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Big Thunder Mountain - non-priority

Next stop Hollywood Studios (arriving approx. 11AM)

• Toy story mania
• Meet Olaf
• Meet Chewbacca
• Transportation Express
  • Other possible attractions: Star tours - non-priority

Next stop Epcot (arriving approx. 3PM)

• Frozen (FP+ hopefully)
• Soarin
• Japan (my sister loves Mitsukoshi Department Store)

Also, on July 7, 2017, we will go to AK for all day. Do you think with Pandora opening it will be possible to see the rest of the park or we will have to add one more day to AK?
Priorities:

• Kilimanjaro Safari
• kali river rapids
• festival of the lion king
• it's tough to be a bug
• Meet Flik
• Dinosaur (non-priority)
• Tree awakenings
• River of life
• See the animals...

Thank you!

 

[Tinknalli]

Are these your only two park days? Trying to hit some of the most popular rides in each park and only able to pre book the FP in one park (Frozen is the best use) I think you run the risk of spending a large amount of time in line for Toy Story and Soarin. If you spread the headliners over more days and utilize FP you will be better off. Of course that only works if you have more park days.

 

[glassslippergirl]

Hello,
Also, on July 7, 2017, we will go to AK for all day. Do you think with Pandora opening it will be possible to see the rest of the park or we will have to add one more day to AK?
Priorities:

• Kilimanjaro Safari
• kali river rapids
• festival of the lion king
• it's tough to be a bug
• Meet Flik
• Dinosaur (non-priority)
• Tree awakenings
• River of life
• See the animals...

Thank you!

Your schedule for the first day seems tight. I don't think you're going to get to do everything you want, especially since it's 4th of July week and lines for headliners will be long. But your expectations in each park are minimal, and you have your priorities, so it's worth a try if hitting all parks is worth it to you.

I was more curious about your AK day. You're planning a whole day there but haven't listed the two new Pandora rides. Do you not intend to try them out? I'd plan to FP one, RD the other, and get a dining package for Rivers of Life to be able to see the new things as well as the old.

 

[jade'nsuch]

Your first day schedule is definitely tight and with it being a major weekend you can practically count on the wait time for 7DMT to be lengthy, even that early in the morning. If at all possible I would definitely keep an eye open for any FP that might be available for it. I hope you're able to do all the parks in one day though, my group had a blast accomplishing it!

 

[Dumbo7]

I agree with the first day. Very tight. I'd change BOG to later and do the mine train at rope drop. Can someone speak about the transportation express. We always rent a car which helps a lot to do more in one day and we stay on the monorail resorts. I would book a dinner package for rivers of light. We loved Tiffins.

 

[tsme]

We park hop every trip & honestly, I never plan (other than dining) the second park. We like to take a more leisurely approach to the 2nd one. We check for certain rides, but move on if the lines are too long. It's relaxing. The 1st park though is planned.

 

[JD3ofthem]

I have a feeling because of the time of year you are going that MK will end up opening at 8AM that day. I'm guessing you were planning on BOG being before park opens. I'd be surprised if the hours don't change before your trip.

 

[disneyvoice]

Wow! That's a lot of hopping in one day. We always gets park hoppers but we typically only use them to get into another park in the evening to eat dinner and maybe watch the the night time fireworks/entertainment. If would be concerned about the amount of time I am losing in transportation to the different parks by hopping that much in one day although the new transportation option does help with that a bit I guess.

If you only have two days I think I would divide the 4 parks up so I was only doing two parks each day. It sounds like you are thinking of adding another day? I would definitely recommend that but I wouldn't spend two days at AK, even with the opening of Pandora.

In all honesty we often don't end up using the park hopper feature we have but we also stay for at least 7 days (usually a bit longer) so we don't have to rush around as much. Most of the time we do one park at rope drop and then leave in the evening and either head to Epcot for dinner or to another resorts for dinner. We usually have two water park days - get there at opening and then leave around 3:00, head back to the resort to shower, etc and then either go to Epcot or Disney Springs for dinner. Typically we spend the entire day at both MK and Epcot but sometimes park hop between AK and DHS since we typically don't spend as much time at those parks. We are spending more time at AK on our next trip because we are doing the Backstage Magic and Safari tours which both take up most of the morning so we are staying until closing one day to see Pandora and staying a bit longer the second day before heading to Disney Springs.

Something else to consider is with doing 3 different parks in one day you are probably going to waste your FP opportunities. I doubt you will be able to schedule 3 FPs in one of the parks with that much hopping (although we've never tried it) and when you arrive after rope drop at the other two parks you will be dealing with the longer stand by lines. It just seems to me that you are going to be spending your entire day either traveling or waiting in line. I think the better strategy is to get to one park at rope drop and do as much as you can via standby until the lines get too long and the park gets too crowded. Then hop to another park and do your 3 FPs there later in the afternoon or evening. That's how we plan things when doing more than one park in a day.

 

[elaine amj]

I agree that MK will likely open early for July 6th. So consider what you would do if that happens. Maybe grab a lunch reservation as a back up?

We did 3 parks (could have easily fit in 4) when we were there last March. And that's with 2 table service meals, including a hop from AK to dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe and then on to MK. I'm pretty realistic at what I can manage at the other parks though. What are you planning for the evening of July 6th? With Frozen and Soarin on your list, I would probably flip your day around and do MK at night since it will likely have late night hours (after the other parks are closed). I know right now it is scheduled to close at 9pm but that sounds rather unlikely.

Also, with Express Transportation, your hops would actually be rather easy and you should be able to manage multiple hops if you want.

Epcot has Morning EMH that day so if MK ends up with extended evening hours, I would suggest:

8am: Epcot RD - Frozen, then Soarin, then whatever else (prob here is that WS doesn't open until 11am so the Japan stop would require staying longer)

1pm: DHS - TSM w/FP+, Olaf, Chewbacca (does he offer FP+?) and whatever else

4/5pm: MK (wait until late night to do all the headliners)

On a busy spring break day, we got to MK in time to watch Wishes from the outside. Then we did a bunch of rides (with same day FPs/standby), wrapping up with several walk ons for BTMR during the last half hour of the night. We got off with 3 mins to spare and ran across the park to 7 Dwarves, getting in line JUST at park close and ended up being almost the only ones on the last train of the night. (it was a walk on at this point)